A lavishly illustrated volume on the Lalbagh Botanical Garden, Bangalore, India, obviously a labour of love by the author, who proudly documents the association of his clan of gardeners, the Thigalas, who had been brought over by the ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, from neighbouring Tamil Nadu to develop gardening and horticulture. Apart from a profusion of historic photographs and engravings that portray a vanished world of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the book also has a number of plates of the work of artists who portrayed plant specimens for their collectors and botanists. ( )